Cultivate your fundamental skills

Most singers suffer through theory and aural skills in college.  A few superstars excel at one or both of those subjects, but singers are usually the students in the class that take 10 minutes to sing through the sight-singing exercise in front of everyone because they are so preoccupied with making “golden-pearly tones” and beautiful phrases. Just sing it!

Naming intervals? Fine. Harmonizing, no problem. Clapping a rhythmic exercise without stopping, armageddon and certain death.

In music theory, singers usually struggle to understand harmonic analysis, but sometimes do well at harmonic dictation.

My point? Singers are notoriously bad at sight reading and  basic theory skills. We also tend to be horrible pianists. That shouldn’t’ matter though, right?  After all, we’re vocalists, we don’t do those things on stage anyway and we’ll never use those skills. Wrong.

Here’s why those skills are important.

As a singer, you will always be part of ensembles.  “I’m not a choir singer though,” you say.  Though your goal may be to appear on the big opera stages of the world as a soloist, don’t fool yourself, you will have to be good at singing with a group as. well. On the opera stage, if you don’t know how to be an ensemble singer, those quartets, quintets and sextets will fall flat and it will be your fault! The person who can’t blend, sing with colleagues, match color or nuance or pitch, and shape a phrase when they are  not a soloist, is not going to survive long. Conductors love it when a singer is versatile enough to sing well in both ensembles settings and as a soloist. Yes, there is a difference!

Apart from the ensemble component, you will severely limit your efficacy if you can’t learn music efficiently and quickly. When you’re starting out, it’s understandable that it takes time. As a working professional, however, you have to be able to learn your part on your own. Occasionally, during a production new cadenzas or other musical material will be assigned to you that you didn’t prepare before the engagement. You may not have your coach with you to help you bang out those parts, or fine-tune them. It will be up to you to figure it out.  You may also have to learn something quickly if someone pulls out of a gig, or if you have the vocal chops to sing something and nobody else does, but you don’t know the piece. Are going to miss your chance? 

Won’t pianists just teach me my part while I’m in school and later on in my professional engagements? No.  You may be lucky enough to have someone do that for you through a portion of your career, but unless you’re independently wealthy and able to travel with your own pianist (which has been done by some all-star singers), you have to be able to do this on your own. 

Can’t I just always use a répétiteur? Répétiteurs are invaluable, but in my opinion are best used when you’ve worked out your own part to some degree and you’re trying to figure out how to put the entire musical picture together with accompaniment.  You still have to find comfort with the entrances of the other singers, places where chorus and soloists are singing, and get an idea of pacing, stylistic elements, and performance practice.

I don’t know any coaches or répétiteurs who enjoy suffering through banging out pitches on the piano for a singer until they learn them by ear. It’s a painful and expensive process for everyone involved.  Don’t be that person. 

So, how proficient do you have to be? I would suggest that you be able to play though your own vocal line well enough to learn the part on your own. It’s really that simple. Developing the ability to accompany yourself or get a sense of what’s happening in the orchestra and with the other voices singing with you is huge plus, but not essential for survival.

Apart from learning music, there is also the question of teaching students yourself. Every singer needs to develop some familiarity with the piano, that’s why you have to take those piano classes in school! Can you play a root position or inverted triad in every key? If not, how will you play warm-ups for your students? The one key pluck method? Fine I suppose, but quite underwhelming, and doesn’t instill much confidence in your abilities from the student’s perspective. Do you have to embellish and realize Bach figured base as you help someone warm up? Absolutely not. Should you be able to play a simple blocked cord well enough to illustrate a vocal concept. Yes!

Will you ever be asked “on which note of inverted applied dominant chord do you enter?” Probably not. Will you be asked in a rehearsal to start at the D-major section, or from the modulation? Frequently. So make sure you have those basic skills that will not only help you make the most of your coaches and teachers advice and instruction, but that won’t slow you down and give you the reputation of the high-maintenance singer who has a nice instrument but has zero musical skill.  You do not want to be known as the one who has to be spoon-fed everything. Not a great reputation to have, and it doesn’t help the stereotype singers already have in the musical world!

As a reminder, most every college audition at the undergraduate level and for professional ensembles will require a sight-singing exam.  Don’t let that surprise you.  

Ok, so what are we talking about here, what ARE the fundamental skills necessary to basic survival as a singer?

My Advice:

Piano: 

Play a root position triad in each key, possibly doubling the root of the cord in bass notes in octaves in your left hand. 

• Be able to play an ascending and descending 5 note scale.    An octave is ideal. 
• Be able to identify any key signature
• For variety, if you can invert triads to 1st and 2nd position and then back to root position, this will greatly enhance your own personal warm-ups and lessons.

• Be able to read through each part of a 4-part hymn or 4-part choral setting of a folk song with no rhythmic or pitch mistakes, and without stopping. 

• Be able to perfectly clap or snap the rhythm of any piece you are singing, or of the hymn or folk song you use for the sight-singing.  Focus only on the rhythm, and you can add text in after you get the rhythm down, but don’t sing it, just isolate the rhythm. 
• Be able to conduct your pieces as you sing them using the correct beat pattern, not just “free styling.”      

Lastly, I recommend you do this every single day.  You cannot cram for this kind of an exam. Steady, deliberate, consistent practice is the only way to cultivate these skills.  Failure to focus on them, while concentrating on the singing alone will cause lop-sided development and will slow you down when you enter college or later on in your professional career.  Do you want to be more marketable? Cultivate these skills.                                                                                                                        

Why do I know this?  Because I stink at a lot of it and it has really slowed me down!  Only now am I starting to feel proficient in some of these areas. 

 Again, you don’t have to be fancy, it’s about familiarization not mastery. Yes, the voice is your instrument, but as vocalists, we never sing alone. You will ALWAYS make music with another voice or instrument be that a chamber group, choir, piano or orchestra. Don’t slow down your progress or hurt your chances of acceptance in to college or in to an ensemble by arriving to an audition without these basic skills.